Tuesday, February 3, 2009.  Chaos and violence continue, peace actions are scheduled to take place in the US, the US rushes to release Iraqi prisoners, more stories emerge on the provincial elections, and more.   Starting with an action that begins this week in the US.  Military Families Speak Out explains:   Come to Washington February 6-9 to demand "The Change WE Need"   President Elect Obama opposed the war in Iraq before it started, calling it a "dumb war."  But he and his advisors have also said that they plan to spread the return of combat troops from that "dumb war" out over sixteen months and to keep tens of thousands of other troops on the ground in Iraq indefinitely.      So from February 6-9, MFSO will be traveling to Washgton to bring the new President and new Congress the message that it is long past time to bring all our troops home from Iraq.  The four days of events will include: * A teach-in featuring the voices of military families, veterans, and Iraqis, explaining the need for an immediate and complete end to the war in Iraq -- and the human impacts of continuing the occupation.  Friday, February 6 from Noon - 3:00 p.m. at Mott House, 122 Maryland Avenue.    * A solemn procession from Arlington National Cemetary to the White House beginning at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, February 7.  Meet at the front gate of the cemetery right outside the exit of the Arlington Metro stop.  Please arrive early. * A "Meet and Greet" and Legislative Briefing from 3:00 - 7:00 p.m. on Sunday, February 8 at the Mariott Metro Center.    * Lobbying members of Congress to end the war in Iraq.  Meet in the cafeteria of the Rayburn House Office Building at 9:00 a.m. Monday, February 9.   Meanwhile A.N.S.W.E.R. explains:   We are organizing a Mass March on the Pentagon on Saturday, March 21, and it is important that you and your family, friends, co-workers and fellow students put on your marching shoes that day.  People are coming from all over the country.  Simultaneous demonstrations are taking place in San Francisco and Los Angeles.    Why are we still marching even after the war criminal George W. Bush has left office?  Because the people must speak out for what is right.  More than 1 million Iraqis have died and tens of thousands of U.S. troops have been wounded or killed.    The Iraq and Afghanistan war will drag on for years unless we act now.  The cost in lives and resources is criminal regardless of whether the Democrats or Republicans are in charge of the government.  [. . .] If Bush's war and occupation of Iraq was an illegal action of aggression -- and it was -- how can the new government say that it can only gradually end the war over a number of years?  The Iraqis don't want foreign military forces running their country.  No one would!  The Pentagon has employed 200,000 foreign contractors (mercenaries) and 150,000 U.S. troops to maintain the occupation of Iraq.  They have no right to be there.  A few thousand are being brought out of Iraq only to be redeployed to occupy Afghanistan, and the fools in the media proclaim "the war is winding down."  That is not true.    President Obama decided to keep the Pentagon just as it was under Bush.  He even selected Bush appointee Robert Gates to keep his position as chief of the Pentagon.  Gates announced that the new administration would double the number of troops sent to Afghanistan.  That is certainly not the "change" most people though was coming following the end of Bush's  tenure.      Meanwhile United for Peace and Justice is reportedly planning something.  Soon.  Any day now.  If not action, maybe a series of glossy pin-up photos of Barack suitable for framing in the best fan-worshipping, Tiger Beat manner.  Remember, United for Peace and Justice may be sleeping on the job but they are dreaming -- very moist and wet dreams.  Someone change the sheets already.   Cindy Sheehan (World Can't Wait) calls it like it is: Many anti-war activists are concentrated on insuring that Obama fulfills his campaign promises to withdraw "combat" troops from Iraq without having the integrity to demand complete withdrawal of all troops and a return to total sovereignty of the country to the people of Iraq, and are not questioning Obama's determination to double troop strength to Afghanistan.I think the US MIC empire needs to be destroyed, but I would prefer that we incorporate a voluntary reduction of empire, before the weight of The Empire® collapses like a house of cards on us; or on the innocents of Afghanistan.      In Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki demonstrates  a puppet can be taught a few tricks.  Among them, how to seize control of the daily news cycle.  Sinan Salaheddin (AP) repeats what al-Maliki's government is saying -- repeats instead of reporting.   Samira Ahmed Jassim has confessed! There's a video of the woman allegedly also known as Umm al-Mumineen ("the mother of all believers") stating she is the one who has recruited over "80 female suicide bombers". The first sentence tells you she "has been arrested." You have to wade through many paragraphs to discover she was arrested January 21st. So the video confession is all the more doubtful and may have been produced under torture. (And bruises hide so much better when you're wearing "an all-ecompassing black Islamic robe".) If al-Mumineen is the or a recruiter, it really makes little difference. She's not a hypnotist -- if she is, that's the only allegation AP's forgotten to present as fact. At best, she provided an avenue to those already prepared to seek violence. It goes to the gender stereotypes of women to believe that they had to be 'corrupted.' The violent response on the part of some Iraqi women is a perfectly natural response to what they are living under. ("Natural" is not the same as "legal." But we're not addressing that. We are continuing to address the pathologizing of one gender.)  Jomana Karadsheh (CNN) manages to cover the same government issued spin but manages to lower the frentic tabloid nature.  But it's only Deborah Haynes (Times of London) who can use the term "suspect" in the first sentence of a report?  Why is it only Haynes can refer to the DVD played at the press conference as an "apparent confession"?   To be clear, Haynes has done her job as a journalist.  In any country, it is not the job of the press to take a government's claims and present them as fact.  In a country where justice is a joke, where human rights organizations and the United Nations have documented reports of tortured confessions -- including from female prisoners -- a press that simply repeats claims of the government as fact isn't offering news.  They are offering tabloid-style entertainment.  Haynes also notes, "At least 36 female suicide bombers attempted or successfully carried out 32 suicide attacks last year, compared with eight in 2007, according to US military data."  As we've noted before, there are many, many more male 'suicide bombers' than female.  But there's something about when it's a woman that tends to make the press minds go all mushy. Maybe it's a sexual response (akin to the way some are turned up by a woman holding a gun -- on screen, in photos or in real life) or maybe it's panic that a woman would think of death.  Oh goodness, it's also troubling and frightening -- apparently.    It's not impossible that Samira Ahmed Jassim has recruited women to be bombers and it's not impossible that she hasn't.  She stands accused, she's not been tried.  And those with any short term memory at all will remember last month when Iraqi officials told the press someone had expressed regret and then his family finally got to see him and, turns out, he didn't say what the Iraqi officials were telling the press.  Whether Samira Ahmed Jassim is a recruiter for female bombers or not, the bombings will continue.   And while CNN may think acknowledging that women in Iraq have "always" been part of the resistance by "helping feed militants, hiding them in their homes and helping to sneak weapons around the country," the women have been far more active.  And note how passive that last phrase is.  Women didn't sneak weapons, according to CNN, they helped to.    If Nouri's smart, he'll continue to play the press via women since he has so many willing cohorts in the press.  Willing cohorts in the press?  File it under "Not since Frank Pitcairn so desperately attacked the Trotskyites out of his love for Stalin has a professional journalist so disgraced himself,"  Patrick Cockburn found himself a true love: Nouri.  At the Independent of London, Patrick writes the kind of garbage that his own father (writing under the psuedonym Frank Pitcaim) would hold his nose at.  Patrick write a valentine to Nouri and Nouri's amazing powers and . . .  Patrick leaves out the part that he was out of Iraq for most of last month as he covered the assault on Gaza.  Patty's been playing pocket pool around Nouri for months now and let's hope he's racking up an impressive score with that because he's leaving his journalist reputation in tatters.    Patty's thrilled with Nouri's awesome election 'power.' In the real world, Gina Chon (Wall St. Journal's Baghdad Life) noted that while driving through Sadr City on Saturday (the day provincial elections were held in 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces) appeared to have far fewer people on the streets "than other parts of the city" (Baghdad).  The paper's Jafar Jani reports, "Um Ali, 56, took her grandsons to the polling station on Saturday so they could dip their fingers in ink, which shows that people had voted, even though they were too young to cast a ballot. . . . Um Ali said she wanted her grandsons to remember this moment and feel the joy of voting in a free election."  McClatchy Newspapers' Iraqi correspondents surveyed West Baghdad on election day where 25-year-old Mohammed Allawi stated, "What optimism?? We are an occupied country.  I am voting only so that my vote will not be stolen by the corrupt people who are willing to do anything to remain firm on their seats.  But it seems I am not even considered an Iraqi citizen -- I can't find my name anywhere -- and my family has been in Ameriyah nearly forty hears."  Two women explain, "We couldn't vote!  We couldn't find our names.  We have been to two centres, and aim to go on looking until we find them or are too tired to go on."  Over and over, voices from West Baghdad reveal that they had trouble voting.  Hmm.  Could the puppet have learned from Florida 2000?  Could the puppet, knowing west Baghdad was always anti-Maliki, have pulled off purging voter rolls?  Who knows?  But with low voter turnout it's amazing that so many Iraqis -- throughout the country -- repeatedly tell that they had to visit more than one polling station over and over.  What -- however it happens -- appears to be a very serious problem results in this 'response' from election commission chair Faraj al-Haidari, "It's not our fault that some people couldn't vote because they are lazy, because they didn't bother to ask where they should vote."  The voters are lazy.  That's the problem.  Voters who went from polling station to polling station -- mainly on foot. They're lazy.  That's the problem.  That's what the story's going to be?   Apparently so -- if Sam Dagher and Steven Lee Myers (New York Times) are going to continue to suffer from Patrick Cockburn Disease. The two attempt to hail Basra as a victory for Nouri -- who was not running in the elections.  Despite the fact that Basra had an incredibly low turnout, they see the vote as an endorsement of Nouri.  The non-participation rate reads like a rejection of the so-called government on every level. And if you lived in Basra when it was under assault (March 2008) maybe you'd take the attitude of "I'm not voting" as well? Your local government didn't protect you when al-Maliki and thugs rolled into town. One level of government assaulted you and the other stood by. Why bother to vote?  Based on the preliminary turnout, what can be argued about Basra can be argued about the bulk of Iraq which is why turnout was so low. 26% more registered voters voted in 2005 than voted on Saturday.   Dahger and Myers declare, "In choosing Mr. Maliki, many in the south seemed willing to sacrifice more local considerations like patronage." A) Basra was assaulted and the local government did nothing to protect it. Yes, you will find some people who support the assault -- and you can even quote him as the paper does -- but the bulk of the people did not approve (as was obvious at the time and is obvious in the voter turnout). That's why they stayed home. As for 'patronage,' al-Maliki went around the country promising everything or are we supposed to forget his multiple attempts at bribery via promises regarding local services all the way up to 'The US is leaving Iraq in less than 16 months! It is so, it is true! Because I, al-Maliki, say it!'? al-Maliki didn't play the patronage game? Worse for the two reporters, Ned Parker (Los Angeles Times) filed today: The prime minister has sought to boost his party, which favors a strong central government, over another Shiite faction, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, which supports a semiautonomous Shiite Muslim region in the south.  Maliki has named Issawi to head a local tribal body funded by his office, and appointed one of the sheik's sons to a job in Baghdad. He has summoned Issawi to conferences in the capital city, where he has listened to his ideas for the nation's future. Observers say that if Maliki wins a large share of provincial council seats in the oil-rich southern provinces, it is in large part because of his diligent wooing of men like Issawi.    al-Maliki attempted that in every province. Note the last observation "Observers say that if Maliki wins a large share of provincial council seats in the oil-rich southern provinces, it is in large part because of his diligent wooing of men like Issawi." Basra recently attempted to become it's own federation, like the KRG in the north. The effort failed. Let's note CNN's first sentence when reporting on that, "A drive to boost the political and economic power of Iraq's oil-rich southern province of Basra has failed, Iraqi election officials said Wednesday." Oil-rich? Check. Southern province? Check. Ned Parker one more time, "Observers say that if Maliki wins a large share of provincial council seats in the oil-rich southern provinces, it is in large part because of his diligent wooing of men like Issawi."   The results are still not final and already there's a concentrated effort to spin the elections results in non-candidate Nouri's favor.  Reality, as Leila Fadel (McClatchy Newspapers) observes, "Voter turnout in Iraq's provincial elections Saturday was the lowest in the nation's short history as a new democracy despite a relative calm across the nation. Only about 7.5 million of more than 14 million registered voters went to the polls. Interviews suggest that the low voter turnout also is an indication of Iraqi disenchantment with a democracy that, so far, has brought them very little."   Meanwhile there is news on the Iraqi prisoner front.  AFP reports that 70 Iraqis imprisoned by the US military were released today and that the US military claims they will begin releasing approximately "50 a day."  That would mean 1,500 a month and, at the end of October, Leila Fadel (McClatchy Newspapers) noted the US had 17,000 Iraqis imprisoned.  In December, John Catalinotto (Workers World) estimated the US had 50,000 Iraqi prisoners in custody?  Regardless of the number, they were all supposed to be released or turned over to the Iraqis on January 1st per the treaty masquerading as a Status Of Forces Agreement.  That treaty went into effect January 1st.  It is February 3rd when this rush measure suddenly takes place. At 1,500 a month -- whether the total is 17,000 or 50,000 -- it's going to take some time for the US to release the prisoners -- a task they were supposed to have completed no later than January 1, 2009.  Remember that the next time someone starts insisting, "Well the SOFA says . . ."   Turning to some of today's reported violence . . .   Bombings?   Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports two Baquba roadside bombings in a ten minute span that wounded five people, 1 bomber blew himself up in Kirkuk, a Mosul roadside bombing left four people inured, and, dropping back to last night, a Kirkuk mortar attack but the mortar proved to be inert and there were no reported injuried.  Reuters notes six were wounded in the two Baquba roadside bombings and a Kirkuk roadside bombing that left two people injured.   Corpses?   Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 1 corpse discovered in Mosul.  Iraq Body Count notes two corpses were discovered yesterday in Makhmour. [Note: Iraq Body Count has a slideshow presentation online here.]     Meanwhile the Green Party has weighed in on the healthcare debate (this is a Green issue, they've weighed in many times already but this is the first since the presidential inauguration):   President Obama has a choice -- he can either work for universal health care or he can satisfy the demands of insurance industry lobbies for continued private profit, said Green Party leaders today. Greens, in demanding a Single-Payer national health care program (also called Medicare For All), said that there was no possibility of guaranteed quality health care for every American under a market-based system. Rep. John Conyers' (D-Mich.) bill for Single-Payer (HR 676, http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h676_ih.xml) has strong Green Party support, although many Greens also hope to see complementary medicine brought under the Single-Payer umbrella. "President Obama needs to follow his own campaign rhetoric and listen to the American people. In many of his own town hall meetings, the demand for Single-Payer has been so strong that [Secretary of Health and Human Services] Tom Daschle has asked to meet with Single-Payer groups. Single-Payer will make health care a human right -- one more important than the 'right' of insurance companies to make a profit off our need for health care," said said Mark Dunlea, New York Green, member of the Hunger Action Network of New York State, and author of "Can Incrementalism Be the Path to Universal Health Care?" (http://www.hungeractionnys.org/increment.html) Green Party leaders expressed special support for pro-Single-Payer organizations and coalitions that have shifted into high gear under the new presidential administration, including the Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care, Healthcare-NOW, California Nurses Association, and Physicians for a National Health Program. "President Obama's plan to have all medical records computerized within five years has made Single-Payer even more urgent. The plan will create an enormous risk for patients' privacy and security, as private health insurers try to weaken privacy safeguards and gain access to records in an effort to exclude people from coverage, or make coverage more expensive for clients they consider high-risk. HMOs and insurance firms make their profits by cherry-picking patients who are less costly to insure and by limiting treatment for those with coverage, so they use medical records to determine who will be a financial risk. The only way to guarantee both protection from predatory corporations and access to health care for all Americans is to enact a Single-Payer program," said Jill Bussiere, co-chair of the Green Party of the United States. Greens have argued that enactment of a Single-Payer program would boost the ailing US economy and provide relief for businesses large and small, since it would cancel the high expense and administrative burden of employer-based health care benefits (http://www.gp.org/press/pr-national.php?ID=158). Single-Payer would lower the cost of health care for all middle- and low-income Americans, since the amount of taxes necessary to sustain Single-Payer would be far less than the cost of private coverage and medical fees. No American will go bankrupt because of a medical emergency in a Single-Payer system. President Obama, despite supporting Single-Payer earlier in his political career, now favors a health care plan that would maintain private insurance industry control over Americans' health care. Profit-making insurance, HMO, and pharmaceutical lobbies have a grip on most Democratic and Republican members of Congress because of campaign contributions and the influence of lobbyists. Montana Senator Max Baucus, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, wants the Single-Payer option "off the table" in the discussion on health care reform and, along with other Democrats, has proposed a market-based plan that would achieve universal coverage by requiring Americans who lack health coverage to purchase insurance from a private company. "There will be no meaningful improvement in our nation's health care system or any chance of universal care until Single-Payer is enacted and profit-making insurance companies no longer decree who gets care and what kind of care," said Jody Grage, treasurer of the Green Party of the United States. "Any 'mandate' reform plan that leaves private insurers in charge will either result in inadequate care or in huge taxpayer-funded subsidies to cover the loss of profits for HMOs and insurance companies compelled to cover people these companies would otherwise exclude. Single-Payer will cover all Americans regardless of age, income, or prior medical condition, and by eliminating the need for private insurers and the high profit rate they demand." "Even state based Single-Payer initiatives are being undermined by the president's insurance-based proposal. Here in Pennsylvania we have a strong bill, with the funding included and a governor who has agreed to sign the legislation if passed (http://www.healthcare4allpa.org). Yet the Healthcare for All Now campaign, which supports the Obama plan, is trying to give the illusion of change, while maintaining the inefficient, exploitative insurance model. It amounts to a waste of tax dollars to provide more government money to insurance companies," said Carl Romanelli, 2006 Pennsyvlania Green candidate for the US Senate. Read "An International Perspective on Health Care Reform" by Connecticut Green Party member John R. Battista, MD (http://www.gp.org/first100/?p=119), published on the Green Party's web site as part of "The First 100 Days: What Would a Green Administration Look Like?" (http://www.gp.org/first100) For a comparison of mandate plans and Single-Payer , see "Talking Points: Why the mandate plans won't work, and why Single-Payer 'Medicare for All' is what we need" by Len Rodberg, PhD, published by Physicians for a National Health Program (http://www.pnhp.org/news/2008/december/talking_points_why_.php). Green Party information page on Single-Payer: http://www.gp.org/organize/sicko.html   Meanwhile, the Green Party's 2008 presidential nominee Cynthia McKinney (World Can't Wait) explains why the Bush administration needs to be prosecuted and also notes:   One of the first underreported acts of President Obama was to sign an order continuing the drone airstrikes, resulting in at least 22 killed so far.  For the dead children of Afghanistan or Pakistan or Gaza, it doesn't matter to their parents if the bomb was dropped by Bush or Obama or the client state they support.  And President Obama has made it clear that the bombs will continue to drop; it is up to us--the people of the United States--to stop them.  That's why it was on my birthday, in front of the Pentagon in 2007, that I declared my independence from every bomb dropped, every child killed, every veteran maimed in the name of U.S. wars.  I said it, and I meant it, and I knew I was going to have to do something I'd never done before if I was ever going to have something I'd never had before.  So I left the Democratic Party.     I don't regret my decision one minute.  I draw my strength from Dr. King, who in his own way, did the same thing when he refused to segregate his moral concerns.    My neighborhood in Los Angeles, Watts and South Central, is already a police state.  Tonight, 25 to 30 young black men, standing handcuffed, outside the barber shop.  Every night, routine dehumanization is carried out in black and brown neighborhoods by LAPD.  I see it.  I never miss it.  It's all around me.               Oscar Grant murdered in cold blood by law enforcement.  Robert Tolan, shot in cold blood by law enforcement, for driving his father's car, mistaken for stolen. Filiberto Ojeda Rios assassinated by the U.S. government; I met his wife and heard the entire story of what happened as he was shot by the FBI and then bled to death. Innocent black and brown and poor white men on death row.  How many Troy Davises and Mumia Abu Jamals will we allow to exist in our country? Native Americans trying to survive despite genocide and ethnic cleansing, struggle against drug and alcohol abuse and poverty, and try to keep their culture alive. And yet the likes of Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, Nancy Pelosi, and now Barack Obama say nothing about the pain I see on the mean streets and reservations across our country, and the miscarriages of justice that are its regular feature, but they allow Bush and company to get away with the highest of crimes, involving millions of deaths.   iraq cindy sheehan jomana karadsheh sinan salaheddin deborah haynes leila fadel mcclatchy newspapers the new york times sam dagher steven lee myers the los angeles times ned parker gina chon the wall street journal john catalinotto patrick cockburn

In this morning's New York Times, Sam Dagher and Steven Lee Myers offer "Iraqi Voters in Vastly Different Cities Share Desire for a Strong Central State" which examines the preliminary results in Basra and Mosul and argues Basra is a huge victory for puppet of the occupation Nouri al-Maliki (no, he wasn't a candidate in the provincial elections -- he did want to make the election all about himself and how nice of two foreign reporters to curry favor with the p.m.) because it shows a strong desire for al-Maliki's type-slaughters (spring 2008's assault on Basra). Golly, with such low turnout in Basra it's amazing that anyone wants to read the results as an endorsement of anything. The results read like a rejection of the so-called government on every level.

And if you lived in Basra when it was under assault maybe you'd take the attitude of "I'm not voting" as well? Your local government didn't protect you when al-Maliki and thugs rolled into town. One level of government assaulted you and the other stood by. Why bother to vote?

That actually seems closer to the truth on what the turnout indicates about the feelings of Iraqis in Basra. Now maybe it's too much truth to offer? Maybe we're too busy trying to spin 'democracy' in Iraq to tell the truth? Or maybe some people need to admit they don't know the first thing about political science?

Based on the preliminary turnout, what can be argued about Basra can be argued about the bulk of Iraq which is why turnout was so low. 26% more registered voters voted in 2005 than voted on Saturday. It would be better to wait for the full results; however, when non-poli sci majors are hitting the ground running in an attempt to spin the election results, I'm not going to sit it out. You expect that spin cycle in the US politics with all the gas bag shows. However, with so few even paying attention to Iraq these days (so few in the US), you'd think news outlets that do cover it could back off from making snap judgments on preliminary results (or, more likely, repeating US official spin of preliminary results).

Voter turnout was down 26% across the country. The message is pretty clear and it's not to be found in "This was a vote of support for al-Maliki."

The voter turnout -- if the figures hold -- is a vote of disgust and distrust with the government on every level including their incumbent representatives on a local level.

It's hilarious to read statements such as: "In choosing Mr. Maliki, many in the south seemed willing to sacrifice more local considerations like patronage." A) Basra was assaulted and the local government did nothing to protect it. Yes, you will find some people who support the assault -- and you can even quote him as the paper does -- but the bulk of the people did not approve (as was obvious at the time and is obvious in the voter turnout). That's why they stayed home. As for 'patronage,' al-Maliki went around the country promising everything or are we supposed to forget his multiple attempts at bribery via promises regarding local services all the way up to 'The US is leaving Iraq in less than 16 months! It is so, it is true! Because I, al-Maliki, say it!'? al-Maliki didn't play the patronage game?


Ned Parker (Los Angeles Times) begs to differ:

If Maliki's Islamic Dawa Party proves victorious in Najaf province, the spiritual capital of Shiite Islam, the graying patriarch will have played a key role. The tribal leader, who claims 80,000 adherents, functions in a manner similar to that of an old-fashioned ward boss in the U.S., delivering his district's vote to his party.
"The prime minister became the right man to protect the Iraqi state," Issawi told The Times on a visit to his home. "He is a strong man, courageous and a son of the tribes."
Issawi is one of several leading Shiite sheiks with whom Maliki has curried favor. The prime minister has sought to boost his party, which favors a strong central government, over another Shiite faction, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, which supports a semiautonomous Shiite Muslim region in the south.
Maliki has named Issawi to head a local tribal body funded by his office, and appointed one of the sheik's sons to a job in Baghdad. He has summoned Issawi to conferences in the capital city, where he has listened to his ideas for the nation's future. Observers say that if Maliki wins a large share of provincial council seats in the oil-rich southern provinces, it is in large part because of his diligent wooing of men like Issawi.

al-Maliki attempted that in every province. Note the last observation "Observers say that if Maliki wins a large share of provincial council seats in the oil-rich southern provinces, it is in large part because of his diligent wooing of men like Issawi." Basra recently attempted to become it's own federation, like the KRG in the north. The effort failed. Let's note CNN's first sentence when reporting on that, "A drive to boost the political and economic power of Iraq's oil-rich southern province of Basra has failed, Iraqi election officials said Wednesday." Oil-rich? Check. Southern province? Check. Ned Parker one more time, "Observers say that if Maliki wins a large share of provincial council seats in the oil-rich southern provinces, it is in large part because of his diligent wooing of men like Issawi."


Saturday, the US Embassy in Iraq released this joint-statement from US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and the top US commander in Iraq Gen Ray Odierno:


The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and the Multi-National Force – Iraq congratulate the Iraqi people on holding provincial elections today. Voter turnout was large. Iraqi security forces successfully protected millions of Iraqis and enabled them to express their opinions freely in fourteen of Iraq’s governorates.

We congratulate the Iraqi authorities, their security forces and the Iraqi election commission for their careful preparation and administration of these elections.

These elections mark a significant milestone for the people of Iraq, and are a major step forward in Iraq’s democratic development.

On the KRG, the Kurdistan Regional Government, they issued a statement yesterday:





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Monday, February 2, 2009.  Chaos and violence continue, a faux commission shuffles paper in public today, provincial elections took place Saturday in Iraq and the counting continues, and more.   Last year, Alex Gibney's amazing Taxi to the Dark Side won the Academy Award for best documentary beating out the empire project builder No End in Sight.  No End in Sight wasn't just a badly made documetary -- a director needs not a sense of the visual -- it was a bad documentary.  Many alleged 'anti-war' types tried to praise that piece of garbage as 'anti-war.'  The Council on/of/for Foreign Relations director of the propaganda film not only supported the illegal war before it started, he supported it while making the film, he supported it while promoting the film.  It takes a real idiot to claim that film was 'anit-war.'  No End in Sight argued not against the Iraq War or war itself.  No End in Sight advanced the argument that the 'problem' with the Iraq War was that there wasn't 'better' planning. That argument is not an argument to stop illegal wars, it is an argument to work harder on them in the pre-war stage.    As someone who rallied friends to vote for Taxi to the Dark Side (and voted for it myself), I do take joy out of No End in Sight going down in flames.  But there's a point to sharing that story (again) today.  The Commission on Wartime Contracting (CWC) ("In Iraq and Afghanistan") held their first hearing.  They would be, they insisted, like the Truman Committee. It was not like the Truman Committee.  It was like the propaganda of No End in Sight.  The Truman Committee, actually the Senate Special Committee Investigating National Defense, found fraud, graft and cost overruns and dealt with them, saving the United States billions.  The Institute for Policy Studies' Sarah Anderson explained in 2006 that the committee "called 1,798 witnesses for 432 hearings and issued 51 reports."  This committee is only required to release two reports.  It may exceed that, but that is all that's required.  As for duties, CWC explains it this way, "The law establishing the Commission defines a broad and substantive mandate.  The Commission is required to study, assess and make recommendations concering wartime contracting for the reconstruction, logistical support, and the performance of security functions in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The Commission's major objectives include a thorough assessment of the systematic problems identified with interagency wartime contracting, the identification of instances of waste, fraud and abusue, and ensuring accountability for those responsible."   Karen DeYoung and Walter Pincus (Washington Post) reported before the hearing that among those offering testimony would be Special Inspector General for Iraq Stuart Bowen and the SIGR is publishing Hard Lessons, a new book by Bowen on the money wasted, today. Dieter Bradbury (Portland Press Herald) reported that US Senator Susan Collins will be among those offering testimony today: "Collins has overseen investigations into government contracting as ranking member and former chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee."   What might have seemed promising quickly became the joke everyone in DC thought it would be.  Commissioner Linda J. Gustitus at least attempted to make it appear there was some teeth to the commission.  She noted that "it wasn't ignorance" that led to the waste of US tax dollars in Iraq, "the [Bush] administration knew from the very beginning that security was going to be a big issue."  She went on to site Bechtel's pre-war study which found Iraq's crumbling security would result in huge costs.  She noted that "half of the cost -- half of the fifty billion we've spent -- went to security." She noted years into the Iraq War, the Iraq Study Group would find "no clear lines establishing who is in charge of reconstruction -- that's four years in."  The 'lessons' from the Iraq War were things "we already knew before we went into Iraq but the administration chose to ignore them."   If that statement bothers you, it should.  The problem with the Iraq War is that it's an illegal war built on lies.  It does not meet -- nor did it ever -- the definition of a just war.  It was a war of choice built on deceit.  The commission might try to argue, "We're looking into monies."  You're making statements that go far beyond money.    A great deal of time was spent by the commissions spit-polishing Colin Powell -- known LIAR to the United Nations.  Poor Collie, or Collie told us, or Collie said.  Collie, Collie, Collie.  Trash, trash, trash.  His "blot" will not go away even when laughable "commissioners" spend all their time trying to pretend he's a respected voice of authority.  He has no authority, he has what he's defined as a "blot."  His words about his lying performance before the United Nations in which he sold lies about the then-impending war, "Well it's a, it's a, of course it will.  It's a blot.  I'm the one who presented it on behalf of the United Nations, uh, United States, to the world.  And it will always be, uh, part of my, uh, my record." Always be part of his record?  The Commission on Wartime Contracting didn't think so.    But why would it?  Look at the commissioners and marvel that such a bunch of losers -- so tied to the illegal war -- could be appointed to in any way review it.  Throw a dart at the board and see it who it hits.  Dov S. Zakheim!  Dov is PNAC.  Dov signed the PNAC statements (PNAC pushed the illegal war starting in the nineties, they are the neocon think-tank).  Is the problem the Bush administration as Commissioner Gustituts indicated?  Then why is Dov showing up as a commissioner and not as a witness?  Dov was one of George W. Bush's foreign policy tutors in 1999 and 2000 -- along with Condi Rice, Richard Perle, Stephen Hadley, Paul Wolfowtiz and Robert Zoellick.  When their pupil was elected, Dov found a job in the Defense Dept where he was the chief financial officer.  And he's a commissioner?  He was the chief financial officer in 2003 and he is a commissioner?  He's evaluating the actions that include his own actions? The commission is a damn joke.and putting people like Dov on it ensure that it remains one.  But it's like No End in Sight, it's about building a better empire.  That became clear repeatedly as Iraq was treated as nothing but a failed experiment to learn from.  (What a joy to Iraqis!  They were reduced to mice in the laboratory!)  Clark Kent Ervin tossed around a lot of phrases ("unity of command," "coherent mission statement," "cost-plus contracts," etc.) and wanted to know what Iraq means for Afghanistan.  Or as Dov put it, "What's already changed on the ground that could help us in Afghanistan? . . . what could be a big help in Afghanistan?"    SIGR's deputy Ginger Cruz gave testimony and managed to offer a little more about Iraq than many.  She noted that the "the true costs are unknown" because reconstruction was done by private contractors working in Iraq and their work is done "in a pocket [of security] created by the US military."  The cost of the reconstruction, Cruz noted, did not include the cost for the security provided by the US military.  So "costs could escalate dramatically" if "we have to use private security" to create those safe 'pockets' for reconstruction to take place in.    One section of interest was during the opening statement by DoD Deputy Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble 's comments regarding Commander's Emergency Response Program (CERP):  CERP funds are appropriated through the DoD and allocted through each major command's sector of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Up to $500,000 can be allocated to individual CERP projects, and CERP beneficiaries often receive payments in cash.  We have also identified occasions where soldiers with limited contracting experience were responsible for administering CERP funds.  In some instances, there appeared to be scant, if any, oversight of the manner in which funds were expended.  Complicating matters further is the fact that payment of bribes and gratuities to government officials is a common business practice in some Southwest Asia nations.  Taken in combination, these factors result in an environment conducive to bribery and corruption.   Remember Gimble's claim that up to $500,000 in CERP funds can go to a single project, we'll come back to that in a minute.  CERP was an issue during the September 10th House Armed Services Committee hearing (and see this entry by Mike).  This is Committe Chair Ike Skelton's exchange with DoD's Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Eric S. Edelman:   Ike Skelton: The department's understanding of the allowed usage of CERP funds seems to have undergone a rather dramatic change since Congress first authorized it. The intent of the program was originally to meet urgent humanitarian needs in Iraq through small projects undertaken under the initative of brigade and battalion commanders. Am I correct? Edelman: Yes, sir. Ike Skelton: Thank you. The answer was "yes." Last year the Department of Defense has used millions of CERP dollars to build hotels for foreign visitors, spent $900,000 on a mural at the Baghdad International Airport and, as I understand this second piece of art, that CERP funds were used for. I'm not sure that the American tax payer would appreciate that knowing full well that Iraq has a lot of money in the bank from oil revenues and it is my understanding that Iraq has announced that they're going to build the world's largest ferris wheel. And if they have money to build the world's largest ferris wheel why are we funding murals and hotels with money that should be used by the local battallion commander. This falls in the purview of plans and policy ambassador. Edelman: No, no, it's absolutely right and I'll shae the stage here -- I'll share the stage quite willing with uh, with Admiral Winnefeld with whom I've actually been involved in discussions with for some weeks about how we provide some additional guidance to the field and some additional requirements to make sure that CERP is appropriately spent. Edelman then tries to stall and Skelton cuts him off with, "Remember you're talking to the American taxpayer." Edelman then replies that it is a fair question. He says CERP is important because it's flexible. It's important because they're just throwing around, if you ask me. They're playing big spender on our dime. Skelton: The issue raises two serious questions of course. Number one is they have a lot of money of their own. And number two the choice of the type of projects that are being paid for. I would like to ask Mr. Secretary if our committee could receive a list of expenditures of $100,000 or more within the last year. Could you do that for us at your convience please? Edelman: We'll work with our colleagues in the controller's office and - and . . . to try and get you -- Skelton: That would be very helpful. The CERP funds are not being tracked.  They haven't.  Congress has repeatedly raised this issue.  As for the claim of "up to $500,000," that's a confusing remark considering that the [PDF format warning] October 30th report from the SIGIR declared, "The recent Duncan Hunter National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2009 imposed a ceiling of $2 million on the amount of CERP money that DoD could allocate to a single project.  The new NDAA futher requires the Secretary of Defense to approve CERP projects costing over $1 million, certifying thereby that the project will meet Iraq's urgent humanitarian relief or reconstruction needs."  Why did no one follow up to ask exactly when the 2009 budget was 'updated'?  Or, for that matter, how it was 'updated' after it was passed by Congress and signed into law by the White House?\   Overall the disappointing hearing was nothing but the Empire Project regrouping to figure out how to take the failed empire building in Iraq and turn it into a success in Afghanistan.  The commission had their first hearing today and lived up to all the ugly whispers and jokes almost immediately.  And if you're not getting how pathetic the commission is and how derelict in their duties the US Congress is being, let's note two things.  First, from the Jan. 27th snapshot: "Was the illegal war legal under international law?  The BBC reports that the Information Tribunal has decided that the cabinet meetings (Tony Blair's cabinet meetings) must be released.  Rosa Prince (Telegraph of London) adds, 'Downing Street refused to reveal whether it would comply with the ruling by the Information Tribunal, which follows a long-running legal battle to keep details of the meetings secret'."  Second, Reed Stevenson (Reuters) reports today. "Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende ordered on Monday an independent commission to examine the government's decision to support the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003."  Jurjen van de Pol (Bloomberg News) notes, "The independent commission, led by former Dutch Supreme Court President Willibrord Davids, will seek to complete the investigation before November and will inform parliament and government of the outcome".  Radio Netherlands Worldwide adds, "The Prime Minister has consistently refused to agree to a full parliamentary inquiry in the matter, saying that all information about the decision to side with the Americans and the British is known already."   Yesterday, Matt Lauer offered the equivalent of journalistic footsie with US President Barack Obama on NBC (link has text and video):   Matt Lauer: Let's talk about some of those men and women who are serving this country overseas in Afghanistan, other locations, in Iraq and I'm sure they're watching today. It's a big event for the armed services and a lot of those people have a vested interest in one of your campaign promises, to end this war and get home as soon -- within 16 months or so -- as humanly possible. So when you look at them, can you say that a substantial number of them will be home in time for next Superbowl Sunday? Barack Obama: Yes, uh, er, I mean we're gonna roll out in a very, very formal fashion what our intentions are in Iraq as well as Afghanistan. But in conversations that I've had with the Joint Chiefs, with people -- the commanders on the ground, uh, I think that we have a sense, now that the Iraqis just had a very significant election, with no significant violence there, that we are in a position to start putting more responsibilities on the Iraqis and that's good news for not only the troops in the field but their families who are carrying an enormous burden.   That's the entire Iraq 'exchange' and despite the efforts of reporters to put Lauer's words into Barack's mouth, Barack's reply does not indicate what they've endlessly hyped.  Barack's words are also remarkably similar to the previous White House occupant's words -- in tone and the fact-free nature.  There were tribal fights, bombings, and much more during the elections.    Saturday in Iraq, provincial elections were held in fourteen of Iraq's eighteen provinces. In his January 10, 2007 radio address, George W. Bush declared, "To empower local leaders, Iraqis plan to hold provincial elections later this year." Two years later and they still weren't able to meet the benchmark of provincial elections in all the provinces.  Though the three provinces that make up the KRG did not hold elections, the Kurdish Regional Government did issue a statement Saturday noting, "Although there are no elections scheduled in the three KRG goernorates and Kirkuk, the KRG supports all citizens who are voting today and is facilitating the voting process for those displaced individuals currently residing within the Region but casting absentee ballots for their original districts.  In Suleimaniah, Erbil and Dohuk there are 15, 23, and 33 voting centres, respectively."  Reuters reports today the Kurdish Naional Assembly Speaker Adnan Mufti announced that the Kurdish region will hold their elecitons May 19th.  That would still leave Kirkuk out of the mix.   There were 14,428 candidates vying for 440 seats.  Saturday the print version of the New York Times included a look at three of the candidates. Sam Dagher profiled Zeinab Sadiq Jaafar, an attorney running in Basra: "Over the last month, she hunted for votes in the city's worst neighborhoods. An independent, Ms. Jaafar makes the case that she is an 'authentic' daughter of Basra who better understands her city's anxieties and needs. She empahsizes that unlike many candidates, she is not backed by some big shot from Baghdad. She also wants to prove that women can compete and win in politics in Iraq on their own merit. Alissa J. Rubin profiled Haithem Ahmed Alam Khalaf who is a "38-year-old sheik" and is running in Abu Ghriab. He says: "There were many violations of human rights in our area by the Iraqi Army; it is better now, but honestly, the official departments of the government were not at the level we were expecting." He's an "Awakening." Timothy Williams profiled Khalid Shakar al-Dulaimi who is a 44-year-old man running in Baghdad and is running as a member of the Gathering of Iraqi Nationalists and Labor. He states:  "The Sunnis and Shiite religious parties failed their opprotunity and involved the country in unrest. People want new faces and new ideas."  The paper provided these graphs regarding the elections.  Timothy Williams predicted that the campaign posters will be the visual image of these elections (while the ink stained fingers were the visual in 2005). He covers expectations as well.  Alissa J. Rubin and Sam Dagher explore Moqtada al-Sadr's low profile which includes no slate of candidates but "the movement is backing two parties." Those who prefer audio, click here and scroll down the left side of the page for Alissa J. Rubin offering analysis of the players.     The New York Times live blogged the elections (the live blog is one continuous entry in terms of link, they break it up into sections but it's one link and you scroll through).  Correspondent Mohammed Hussein wrote of walking over three miles and visiting four polling stations before he was allowed to vote -- repeatedly he was told he wasn't on that polling station's list.  At the fourth station, he wasn't sure of the nominees listed.  His wife gave up after repeatedly bing told she wasn't on that station's list to vote.  Hatim Hameed tells the paper of experiencing similar problems in Falljua where it took trips to five polling centers "before I found my name. I had to walk for more than an hour."  And, Abu Abdullah al-Jubouri explained, "There is no transportation to bring people to the voting centers. Don't they think about how the people will get to the places where they have to vote? I'm going to vote by myself because I won't bring my family that far." In today's paper, Stephen Farrell and Alissa J. Rubin report Nasreen Yousif went to three different polling centers in Baghdad before she gave up, "Now I am going home. Maybe there is a fourth school, but it is too far and I can't walk anymore." At the paper's blog, Timothy Williams explains western Baghdad voters were searched three times before they were even allowed to enter the polling center.   The paper's Alissa J. Rubin observed Sunday, "In the United States, many Americans view the war as already over, even though more than 140,000 American soldiers remain on Iraqi soil." Omar al-Dulaimi offers his take on the illegal war, "The American military presence brought nothing to our streets but destruction and chaos." Stephen Farrell and Rubin noted of Saturday, "Driving was banned in most of the country to prevent suuicide bombers from attacking any of the more than 6,000 polling places and security checkpoints, often spaced just yards apart. The tight security, couples with confusion over where voters should cast their ballots, appeared to have reduced turnout in many districts across the country." They estimate Nineveh Province saw 75% turnout of registered voters while Basra saw only 50%. Deborah Haynes (Times of London's Inside Iraq) reported on one get-out-the-vote attempt: texting: I was being inundated, like everyone else in Baghdad, by mass text messages from hopeful candidates pitching for votes ahead of provincial elections tomorrow.    A confusing array of more than 14,400 candidates from 407 different parties, independent entities and individuals are vying for just 440 seats on 14 provincial councils across the country. In a bid to make sense of the huge choice, the candidates are on lists -- either independent or for a party. The list has a number, which is what I stupidly mistook to be the varying price of my monthly phone bill. One voter-wooing text (received multiple times) read like this:    "Vote for 302, the list of Prime Minister Maliki who achieved security and restored national sovereignty."  Another one went:   "With your vote we will hold them accountable and build our country. Elect from the list of Mithal Allusi, 292."A third message (I could go on forever) read:"Vote for a Baghdad with everyone living with freedom and security. Tawafuq 265."  The votes are still being counted but AP notes election commission chair Faraj al-Haidari estimates turnout across the country to be at 51%. al-Haidari is an ass who won't take accountability, "It's not our fault that some people couldn't vote because they are lazy, because they didn't bother to ask where they should vote." If the percentage remains low when all votes are counted, that not only rejects the hype that the elections had captured Iraqi's fascination and that they were wild to vote. The reasons for the low percentage -- if that number holds -- may include not feeling vested in the puppet government or in their occupied country, not trusting the system or voter suppression. Votes can be suppresed, as 2004 voters in Ohio can attest, if you create chaos and frustration. Certainly having people forced to walk from polling station to another repeatedly and requiring they be frisked multiple times before enterting each polling center can be seen as security or as harassment. Leila Fadel (McClatchy Newspapers) pins it on reluctance to embrace 'democracy' on the part of Iraqis (how could they embrace what they don't have?) and she notes, "Voter turnout in Iraq's provincial elections Saturday was the lowest in the nation's short history as a new democracy despite a relative calm across the nation. Only about 7.5 million of more than 14 million registered voters went to the polls." It's cute the way the press reported nearly 15 million registered voters when they thought the turnout would be huge and now that it wasn't huge, they stop using "nearly 15 million" to run with "more than 14 million". Ahmed Rasheed, Waleed Ibrahim, Michael Christie, Missy Ryan and Katie Nguyen (Reuters) cite "voter registration problems and tight security" as the reasons for the low turnout. They also note that 2005's provincial vote saw 76% of registered voters participating.  Remember that.  Today the votes are still being counted. (Maybe some news outlet can live blog that?) Turnout was very low despite talk during the lead up. Monte Morin (Los Angeles Times) explains, "Just over half of Iraq's 15 million registered voters cast ballots in weekend provincial elections, with turnout as low as 40% in at least one province, but Iraqi and international officials insisted Sunday that they were satisified with the participation." Morin notes that "turnout failed to reach the 73% predicted by a recent government poll of 4,570 Iraqis." Alissa J. Rubin (New York Times) examines the preliminary results and notes winners appear to be "several secular parties" and Nouri al-Maliki, puppet of the occupation. These are preliminary results, as Rubin points out, not official ones.  She explains, "The Americans had pushed for the provincial elections as a way to redistribute power more evenly throughout the country after many Iraqis boycotted the last elections in 2005.  It was unclear whether a lower-than-expected turnout, at 51 percent nationwide, would curb hopes that all Iraqi sectarian and ehtnic groups could be more accurately represented."  Rubin states that Sunni participation was higher throughout Iraq than it was in 2005 (but at 40% in Anbar -- we'll come back to Anbar at the end).  So Sunni participating increased and Shi'ite participation drastically fell? That is the conclusion one would have to draw. Remember that 76% of registered voters participated in 2005. The results, when known, will be interpreted in various ways. Ernesto Londono (Washington Post) explains, "For the northern provinces of Iraq, the outcome of elections held Saturday will provide the first snapshot in decades of demographics and loyalties in areas that have become the subject of a visceral dispute between Arabs and Kurds. Newly elected leaders in these provinces, where Sunni Arabs are widely expected to gain political power, will be thrust into the debate over whether disputed territories, including the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, should be annexed to the Kurdistan Regional Government."  Saturday, the KRG declared, "Unfortunately the KRG notes its great concern that thousnads of Kurds in Ninewah, Makhmour and Khanaqeen were unable to exercise their right to vote due to a logistical mix-up by the Independent Electoral Commission."  Nineweh is a region the Kurds are thought to want, Mosul is the capitol of the province.  The Los Angeles Times covered Mosul vote: "Hisham, an Iraqi Kurd, had watched as his city fell apart. His Kurdish, Christian and Shiite friends fled, but he resolved to stay on. Slowly, he came to resent the Kurdish parties that governed Mosul.  So Hisham voted Saturday in favor of the Arab nationalist Hadba party. He saw the vote as a way to bring the city back to what it was before 2004, when he lived in peace with all his neighbors -- before Islamic militancy and ethnic tensions ravaged Mosul."  Mosul is where Iraqi Christians were under attack in the second half of 2008 and had to flee.  Kim Gamel (AP) also reported on Mosul and quoted Bassem Bello, "It's better at this point but we paid a high price for it. We're working very hard to make sure it doesn't happen again." Leila Fadel (Baghdad Observer, McClatchy Newspapers) quotes Nineveh Province's Leila Solaiman Mohammed who states, "I voted for the Fraternity of Nineveh (Kurdish slate) because it represents my race and we hope it would help us get our rights as Kurds. We want to live in peace like others."  Meanwhile Fadel al-Badrani (Reuters) reports that, in Anbar Province, "Tribal sheikhs who helped drive al Qaeda militants out of Western Iraq threatened on Monday to take up arms against the provincial government because of what they said was fraud in Saturday's provincial polls." Today's reported violence including many bombings . . .     Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Mosul roadside bombing today that claimed 3 lives ("the father, the mother and their son"), another Mosul roadside bombing that left two police officers injured and a Baji roadside bombing that left two Iraq service members wounded.  The Los Angeles Times reports an Iraqi child and the father of the child are dead.  They were killed by the US military when the US military struck their car.  Why the convoy struck the car and whether six more Iraqis were wounded (US version) or nine more Iraqis were killed (Iraqi officials version) is not known: "There was no way to reconcile the different accounts."   And Sunday the US military announced: "A U.S. Soldier died as a result of a non-combat related injury in Kirkuk, Iraq Jan 31. The name of the deceased is being withheld pending notification of next-of-kin and release by the Department of Defense. The incident is under investigation."  The announcement brought the number of US service members killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war to 4237.   In the United States, Iraq Veterans Against the War announces: IVAW Participates in Historic Iraqi Labor Conference IVAW will be traveling with a U.S. labor delegation to participate in the First International Iraqi Labor Conference in Erbil, Iraq, which takes place from February 27-28. The conference will bring together trade unionists from across Iraq with international allies from labor movements around the world. The objectives of the conference are: (1) to unify the Iraqi labor movement; (2) to increase pressure on the Iraqi government to enact a labor rights law that conforms to all international standards in the International Labor Organization Conventions on the Rights of Workers; (3) to defend Iraqi national resources and public assets against foreign acquisition; and (4) to demand restoration of full sovereignty, which can only be accomplished by ending the occupation and removing all foreign troops and bases.     iraq iraq veterans against the war the washington post karen deyoung walter pincus dieter bradbury the los angeles times monte morin the new york times alissa j. rubin the washington post sam dagher timothy williams deborah haynes kim gamel stephen farrell leila fadel mcclatchy newspapers sahar issa laith hammoudi mohammed hussein rick maze ahmed rasheed waleed ibrahim michael christie missy ryan katie nguyen ned parker usama redha

Saturday in Iraq, provincial elections were held in fourteen of Iraq's eighteen provinces. In his January 10, 2007 radio address, George W. Bush declared, "To empower local leaders, Iraqis plan to hold provincial elections later this year." Two years later and they still weren't able to meet the benchmark of provincial elections in all the provinces. There were 14,428 candidates vying for 440 seats. Typical campaign poster can be seen in the photo below by Sgt Jerry Saslav, 4th Infantry Division Public Affairs, a poster of the puppet Nouri al-Maliki in Sadr City.



The votes are still being counted. Turnout was very low despite talk during the lead up. Monte Morin (Los Angeles Times) explains:

Just over half of Iraq's 15 million registered voters cast ballots in weekend provincial elections, with turnout as low as 40% in at least one province, but Iraqi and international officials insisted Sunday that they were satisfied with the participation.
U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker characterized the turnout as "large" and Iraq's top election official called it "the most important election to take place since the fall" of Saddam Hussein. However, turnout failed to reach the 73% predicted by a recent government poll of 4,570 Iraqis.

Alissa J. Rubin (New York Times) examines the preliminary results and notes winners appear to be "several secular parties" and Nouri al-Maliki, puppet of the occupation. These are preliminary results, as Rubin points out, not official ones -- they could change as happened in the US in the 2000 presidential election. No word on whether or not the US Supreme Court intends to step in should that happen. Rubin does note:

The Americans had pushed for the provincial elections as a way to redistribute power more evenly throughout the country after many Iraqis boycotted the last elections in 2005. It was unclear whether a lower-than-expected turnout, at 51 percent nationwide, would curb hopes that all Iraqi sectarian and ethnic groups could be more accurately represented.
[. . .]
Low turnout of just 40 percent in Anbar Province was a particular surprise because the area, for years racked by a brutal insurgency, is now relatively calm and many people were eager to vote after having sat out the elections in 2005. Despite the low numbers in Anbar, the electoral commission said Sunni participation nationwide was higher than it had been in 2005.

So Sunni participating increased and Shi'ite participation drastically fell? That is the conclusion one would have to draw. Ahmed Rasheed, Waleed Ibrahim, Michael Christie, Missy Ryan and Katie Nguyen (Reuters) reported yesterday that 76% of registered voters participated in the 2005 provincial elections. The results, when known, will be interpreted in various ways. Ernesto Londono (Washington Post) explains, "For the northern provinces of Iraq, the outcome of elections held Saturday will provide the first snapshot in decades of demographics and loyalties in areas that have become the subject of a visceral dispute between Arabs and Kurds. Newly elected leaders in these provinces, where Sunni Arabs are widely expected to gain political power, will be thrust into the debate over whether disputed territories, including the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, should be annexed to the Kurdistan Regional Government."


Saturday the Kurdish Regional Government released the following:




Bonnie notes that Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "The Greedy Pig" went up yesterday.


The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.


iraq
the los angeles times
monte morin
the new york times
alissa j. rubin

Isaiah's latest The World Today Just Nuts "The Greedy Pig." Tom Daschle, Health and Human Services nominee, declares, "What? Why is anyone surprised? I owe $128,000 in taxes I got caught not paying. I made a ton of money from the health care industry and I'm the HHS nominee. What? Did you forget the bailout I pushed through for my sife after 9-11? Oink! Oink! Piggies rule!" See Mike, Cedric and Wally for more on the post 9-11 financial bailout.



the world today just nuts
comic
tom daschle
the greedy pig
the daily jot
cedrics big mix
mikey likes it
the common ills

I walked more than three miles and four polling centers to vote today. I have lived in the same neighborhood for more than 30 years, but my name was not on the list.
With the sound of hovering American helicopters filling the unusual silence on the streets I walked to the polling center nearest my house to vote. First I had to be searched and take off my wristwatch, my box of cigarettes and my mobile telephone because an American patrol was watching the main checkpoint of the polling center.
I checked my name but I could not find it. An employee told me: "You may find it at another center." So I started walking. But the guards wouldn’t let me go straight there because of the security cordons around polling centers. My route was like a sneaky puzzle. The streets were clear of vehicles and children exploited the occasion to amuse themselves by playing football or marbles in the streets, without any notion of the importance of this day.

The above is the opening to Mohammed Hussein's account (at the New York Times' live blog of the elections) of attempting to vote yesterday. He had to go to four polling stations before he could vote and at the fourth station, he didn't know any of the nominees. He points out that his wife's name couldn't be found on any list of voters so she wasn't allowed to vote in the provincial elections. Hatim Hameed tells the paper of experiencing similar problems in Falljua where it took trips to five polling centers "before I found my name. I had to walk for more than an hour."
And, Abu Abdullah al-Jubouri explained, "There is no transportation to bring people to the voting centers. Don’t they think about how the people will get to the places where they have to vote? I'm going to vote by myself because I won't bring my family that far." In today's paper, Stephen Farrell and Alissa J. Rubin report Nasreen Yousif went to three different polling centers in Baghdad before she gave up, "Now I am going home. Maybe there is a fourth school, but it is too far and I can't walk anymore." At the paper's blog, Timothy Williams explains western Baghdad voters were searched three times before they were even allowed to enter the polling center.




Photo above is an M-NF one taken by Sgt Jerry Saslav, 4th Infantry Division Public Affairs. The poster of the puppet Nouri al-Maliki in Sadr City. Fourteen of Iraq's eighteen provinces held elections yesterday. No, that was not what the benchmarks called for. After scoffing at benchmarks for most of fall 2006, the White House turned around and proposed the 18 benchmarks by which 'success' could be measured in Iraq. The tune was soon changed, partly in order to sell the 'surge' (sending more troops to Iraq). January 10, 2007, George W. Bush explained in his radio address, "Ordinary Iraqi citizens must see that military operations are accompanied by visible improvements in their neighborhoods and communities. So America will hold the Iraqi government to the benchmarks it has announced. To establish its authority, the Iraqi government plans to take responsibility for security in all of Iraq's provinces by November. To give every Iraqi citizen a stake in the country's economy, Iraq will pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis. To show that it is committed to delivering a better life, the Iraqi government will spend $10 billion of its own money on reconstruction and infrastructure projects that will create new jobs. To empower local leaders, Iraqis plan to hold provincial elections later this year. And to allow more Iraqis to re-enter their nation's political life, the government will reform de-Baathification laws, and establish a fair process for considering amendments to Iraq's constitution."

Security in all of Iraq's provinces? Close if you rig the system. The oil laws? Ha. $10 billion of its own money? Ha! De-de-Baathification? They passed a law last year that they didn't implement and that had no check on it. And "Iraqis plan to hold provincial elections later this year"? January 2007 that statement was made.

It's January 2009. And all eighteen provinces didn't hold elections yesterday. Two years after Bully Boy promised they'd be held and the measure still hasn't been met.

By every measure, the illegal war is a failure.


They're just there to try and make the people free,
But the way that they're doing it, it don't seem like that to me.
Just more blood-letting and misery and tears
That this poor country's known for the last twenty years,
And the war drags on.
-- words and lyrics by Mick Softly (available on Donovan's Fairytale)

Last Sunday, ICCC's number of US troops killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war was 4232 and tonight? 4237. Today the US military announced: "A U.S. Soldier died as a result of a non-combat related injury in Kirkuk, Iraq Jan 31. The name of the deceased is being withheld pending notification of next-of-kin and release by the Department of Defense. The incident is under investigation." Just Foreign Policy's counter estimates the number of Iraqis killed since the start of the illegal war to be 1,307,319 . . . same as last week and the same as the week before and . . . They're not updating it. Iraqi deaths only need to be counted when a Republican is in the White House. Just Foreign Policy doesn't give a damn about Iraqi deaths. You wouldn't go from January 11th to February 1st with the same date on your 'daily counter' if you gave a damn. They used to give a damn but then Barack was headed to the White House and we must not do anything to upset the Christ-child. We must not count the number of Iraqis who die, we must not call for an end to the illegal war, we must just cheer, cheer and cheer as the War Hawk Corporatist does what Republicans wouldn't have the blind support to get away with. On the destruction of American lives and liberties, on the continuation of the empire, there is bi-partisan consensus. And the consensus into the so-called 'anti-war' 'movement' and the so-called 'alternative' media.

That's why you've had the silence in response to Rick Maze's "Levin: Iraq plan has wiggle room" (Army Times):

The Senate Armed Services Committee chairman said Friday that he believes President Barack Obama's pledge to withdraw all combat troops from Iraq within 16 months has some "wiggle room."
Meeting with reporters to talk about his committee's agenda for the year, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said he thinks Obama could accept something less than a complete withdrawal under two conditions.
First, it would depend on "how much longer" a full withdrawal of combat forces might take, Levin said.
Second, Obama could accept a withdrawal plan that included "big movement early" of combat forces that pulled out at least 80 percent of forces within the 16-month timeline, Levin said, adding: "I think that would be credible."
[. . .]
Levin, however, said he thinks a less-than-total withdrawal may be acceptable.

We noted Maze's report in Friday's snapshot. You know what this is like? Samantha Power telling the BBC at the start of March that Barack's 16-month 'promise' isn't one. And the silence that greeted it. In other words, in four months Tom Hayden may stumble upon it and show up ranting. But when it actually mattered? Cowardly asses stayed silent. As they always do. That's what happens when life makes you a failure and you depend upon others for riches you can't earn. The beggars could scale back their greed and be honest. They could try actually working for a living. Either option doesn't interest them so they just whore themselves out. Repeatedly. Whore a little and they put you in jail, whore a lot and they give you your own Pacifica radio show and a Nation column. Whore a whole lot and you get a CREDO grant.

Meanwhile, like the Bully Boy before him, Bully Boy Barack loves soft coverage and what could be softer than Matt Lauer on Superbowl Sunday? Barack declared, "We are in a position to start putting more responsibility on the Iraqis, and that's good news for not only the troops in the field but also their families, who are carrying an enormous burden." And the US military families burdens are eased by sending more US troops to Iraq? Oh you know Matt Lauer didn't ask that one. The man who's out of his depth interviewing Jennifer Lopez never learned how to interview elected officials which is why Matt Lauer's name never made the short list for Meet The Press moderator. Barack had no hard numbers during the campaign and, now that he's been elected and sworn in, he's still got no hard numbers. He has no plans, just little patter and oh, how, the groupies suck it up. MSNBC notes what Lauer couldn't, "Obama gave no details, but he said his administration would make its intentions on troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan known in coming days." Kick the can further down the road, Barack. It's not like anyone holds you accountable.

We'll return to the topic of the elections but let's continue with the violence -- the violence Just Foreign Policy isn't interested in anymore because life became giggles and wet dreams for Just Foreign Policy with Barack in the White House.

McClatchy's Sahar Issa reports a Baghdad sticky bombing targeting the "Awakening" Council that left Mohammed Salama wounded as well as a person on the street, a Nineveh Province house bombings and Issa drops back to Saturday to note two Kirkuk roadside bombings that resulted in one person being wounded. McClatchy's Laith Hammoudi notes a Saturday tribal fight in Baghdad that resulted in one death and one person injured. Alissa J. Rubin and Stephen Farrell (New York Times) report security forces shot two people in Baghdad who "tried to enter a polling place carrying cameras and recorders".

Returning to the provincial elections, in today's New York Times, Alissa J. Rubin observes, "In the United States, many Americans view the war as already over, even though more than 140,000 American soldiers remain on Iraqi soil." Omar al-Dulaimi offers his take on the illegal war, "The American military presence brought nothing to our streets but destruction and chaos." Stephen Farrell and Rubin note of yesterday, "Driving was banned in most of the country to prevent suuicide bombers from attacking any of the more than 6,000 polling places and security checkpoints, often spaced just yards apart. The tight security, couples with confusion over where voters should cast their ballots, appeared to have reduced turnout in many districts across the country." They estimate Nineveh Province saw 75% turnout of registered voters while Basra saw only 50%. Deborah Haynes (Times of London's Inside Iraq) reports on one get-out-the-vote attempt: texting:

I was being inundated, like everyone else in Baghdad, by mass text messages from hopeful candidates pitching for votes ahead of provincial elections tomorrow.
A confusing array of more than 14,400 candidates from 407 different parties, independent entities and individuals are vying for just 440 seats on 14 provincial councils across the country. In a bid to make sense of the huge choice, the candidates are on lists -- either independent or for a party. The list has a number, which is what I stupidly mistook to be the varying price of my monthly phone bill.
One voter-wooing text (received multiple times) read like this:
"Vote for 302, the list of Prime Minister Maliki who achieved security and restored national sovereignty."
Another one went:
"With your vote we will hold them accountable and build our country. Elect from the list of Mithal Allusi, 292.”A third message (I could go on forever) read:“Vote for a Baghdad with everyone living with freedom and security. Tawafuq 265."


The votes are still being counted but AP notes election commission chair Faraj al-Haidari estimates turnout across the country to be at 51%. al-Haidari is an ass who won't take accountability, "It's not our fault that some people couldn't vote because they are lazy, because they didn't bother to ask where they should vote." If the percentage remains low when all votes are counted, that not only rejects the hype that the elections had captured Iraqi's fascination and that they were wild to vote. The reasons for the low percentage -- if that number holds -- may include not feeling vested in the puppet government or in their occupied country, not trusting the system or voter suppression. Votes can be suppresed, as 2004 voters in Ohio can attest, if you create chaos and frustration. Certainly having people forced to walk from polling station to another repeatedly and requiring they be frisked multiple times before enterting each polling center can be seen as security or as harassment. Leila Fadel (McClatchy Newspapers) pins it on reluctance to embrace 'democracy' on the part of Iraqis (how could they embrace what they don't have?) and she notes, "Voter turnout in Iraq's provincial elections Saturday was the lowest in the nation's short history as a new democracy despite a relative calm across the nation. Only about 7.5 million of more than 14 million registered voters went to the polls." It's cute the way the press reported nearly 15 million registered voters when they thought the turnout would be huge and now that it wasn't huge, they stop using "nearly 15 million" to run with "more than 14 million".

Ahmed Rasheed, Waleed Ibrahim, Michael Christie, Missy Ryan and Katie Nguyen (Reuters) cite "voter registration problems and tight security" as the reasons for the low turnout. They also note that 2005's provincial vote saw 76% of registered voters participating. Ned Parker and Usama Redha (Los Angeles Times) focus on Kufa:


Haidar Lafta shows his index finger, stained a deep purple after he voted for the Independent Movement of the Free People list, one of the two Sadr-sponsored slates in the election. The movement's poster displays a pair of fists tearing apart a rope binding them.
His friends applaud as Lafta curses the ruling Shiite powers, the ones they believe conspired against Sadr's militia with a military offensive in Basra last spring. After that campaign, the Sadr movement went from a powerful force that many suspected would sweep elections in the Shiite south to one in disarray.Lafta shakes his fist when he talks about Sadr's movement. "They are strong. They know how to talk, to defend the oppressed people," he says.
He disparages Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, who ordered the Basra campaign and reaped benefits afterward: "He has done nothing for Kufa."

The Los Angeles Times also covered Mosul (reported on by an unnamed correspondent):

Hisham, an Iraqi Kurd, had watched as his city fell apart. His Kurdish, Christian and Shiite friends fled, but he resolved to stay on. Slowly, he came to resent the Kurdish parties that governed Mosul.
So Hisham voted Saturday in favor of the Arab nationalist Hadba party. He saw the vote as a way to bring the city back to what it was before 2004, when he lived in peace with all his neighbors -- before Islamic militancy and ethnic tensions ravaged Mosul. He did not worry about Hadba's reputation for vitriolic rhetoric against the Kurdish parties. He was just desperate to find a way out of the current morass.
On his walk home from voting, Hisham watched children play soccer in the street and invited friends over for billiards. He didn't hear an explosion Saturday, a welcome change from most days.

Kim Gamel (AP) also reports on Mosul where Iraqi Christians were under attack in the fall and had to flee:

"It's better at this point but we paid a high price for it," said Bassem Bello, the Christian mayor of Tel Kaif, a mixed Sunni Arab-Christian town near Mosul. "We're working very hard to make sure it doesn't happen again."
He declined to say who was behind the attacks, which claimed up to 16 lives by some counts. But he said the outgoing provincial council had failed to protect its people.
"Whenever something like this happens we lose families. They go abroad. This is the agenda. They want the original people of this country to leave," he said. "They have certain aspirations to take over what the Christians have in their areas. Also there are extremist Islamic groups."

Leila Fadel (Baghdad Observer, McClatchy Newspapers) quotes Nineveh Province's Leila Solaiman Mohammed who states, "I voted for the Fraternity of Nineveh (Kurdish slate) because it represents my race and we hope it would help us get our rights as Kurds. We want to live in peace like others." That is one among many Iraqi voices that Fadel quotes.


New content at Third:

Truest statement of the week
A note to our readers
Editorial: The fear paralysis
TV: Fate laughs at 2006's handicappers
Military sexual assault
Congrats America, you elected a Jewish mother
Mailbag
And that's why you don't let Republicans in the door
The Shirley goes to . . .
The backstory on the White House press briefings
Hypocrisy Corrente Style
ETAN says drop charges against Jose Belo
Roundtable
Highlights

Isaiah's latest goes up after this. Pru notes Ken Oldende's "Barack Obama and the order to close Guantanamo" is "superficial" in the beginning but gets better (Great Britain's Socialist Worker):

US president Barack Obama has issued a number of executive orders in his first week in office that distance him from his predecessor George Bush – on Guantanamo Bay, stem cell research, reproductive rights and climate change.
But in other respects – such as the war in Afghanistan – he has made clear that it is business as usual for US imperialism.
The biggest change was the announcement of plans to close the US’s prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where 245 “enemy combatants” are still being detained without trial.
Obama’s order goes on to announce the closure of CIA detention centres and an end to to the practice of “rendition”.
This went further than most observers were expecting on these issues and is a victory for human rights activists around the world who have been campaigning against Bush’s torture tactics since 2001.
But now Obama has to decide what to do with the remaining detainees. He would like US allies to take many of them, but other governments are not keen to get involved.
Alternatively they could be moved onto US soil. This would put them in the same position as Ali al-Marri. the sole “enemy combatant” already on US soil.
Brig
Al-Marri has been held without charge or trial at the Consolidated Naval Brig at Charleston, South Carolina, since 2003. His legal status is still being fought over in US courts.
The US also detains people in other prisons around the world, such as the notorious Bagram airbase in Afghanistan that holds about 600 prisoners.
US officials say Bagram’s inmates are Taliban captured on the battlefield – but they are still being held there indefinitely.
Obama has continued the Bush regime’s policies in Afghanistan in other respects too. He plans to escalate military operations in the country.
During Obama’s first week in office he authorised two missile strikes on Pakistan. These killed 22 people, including women and children.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were the biggest issue for Obama’s supporters during the early stages of his campaign. But now Americans say they the issue they are most worried by is the economy and the recession.
Obama’s inauguration speech referred to sacrifices that he says will have to be made.
He specifically referred to the “selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job”.
Now Obama is trying to pass a bill that will pump nearly £600 billion into the US economy to fight the growing recession. This is the biggest spending package since Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s.
The bill aims to save or create between three and four million jobs through a series of infrastructure projects. These include new roads, bridges, electricity lines and sewage works.
Despite the size of the package, many economic commentators say it won’t be enough to solve the crisis.
The recession has destroyed the credibility of the neoliberal ideology that has dominated Western economic policy for the past 30 years.
But Obama has thus far shown no sign of making the radical break with establishment policies that is needed to help ordinary working people during this crisis.
© Socialist Worker (unless otherwise stated). You may republish if you include an active link to the original.
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iraq
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Today's New York Times contains a photo by Johan Spanner on the front page that's captioned "Iraq Gets Ready to Vote. People were rallying in Baghdad as Saturday's provincial elecitons neared with 14,428 candidates vying for 440 seats. Page A5." (It's the national edition.) In the photo, the backs of two security forces (not US) are seen and between them you see an Iraqi male holding a campaign poster up in the air and staring at them.

Inside the paper, A5 is devoted to Iraq (which isn't enough if you contrast that with the non-stop US election coverage). Three candidates get profiled. Sam Dagher profiles Zeinab Sadiq Jaafar (all three candidates have their photos printed, by the way -- noted because some women running for offices are not allowing photos due to safety concerns) and she's an attorney running in Basra:

Over the last month, she hunted for votes in the city's worst neighborhoods. An independent, Ms. Jaafar makes the case that she is an "authentic" daughter of Basra who better understands her city's anxieties and needs. She empahsizes that unlike many candidates, she is not backed by some big shot from Baghdad. She also wants to prove that women can compete and win in politics in Iraq on their own merit.

Alissa J. Rubin profiles Haithem Ahmed Alam Khalaf who is a "38-year-old sheik" and is running in Abu Ghriab. He says:

There were many violations of human rights in our area by the Iraqi Army; it is better now, but honestly, the official departments of the government were not at the level we were expecting.

He's an "Awakening." Timothy Williams profiles Khalid Shakar al-Dulaimi who is a 44-year-old man running in Baghdad and is running as a member of the Gathering of Iraqi Nationalists and Labor. He states:

The Sunnis and Shiite religious parties failed their opprotunity and involved the country in unrest. People want new faces and new ideas.

That's in the last entry as well and I couldn't find a link. We can provide a link to this which is the paper's liveblog of the election.

A5 also contains graphs. Structure of Iraq's Government, Council seats, etc. And two articles. Timothy Williams contributes "A Calmer Iraq Prepares for Another Try at the Ballot" and it notes the figures, 440 seats up for grabs, 14,428 candidates and his guess that the campaign posters will be the visual image of these elections (while the ink stained fingers were the visual in 2005). He covers expectations as well.

Alissa J. Rubin and Sam Dagher offer "Sadr, Insurgency Icon, Is Silent But Backers Work Behind Scenes." While Moqtada al-Sadr has no slate of candidates per se, "the movement is backing two parties." Where is al-Sadr? No one knows. The reporters write:

In many ways, it seem the movement is trying to regain its relevance and transform itself into something like the American lobbying group MoveOn -- a group that candidates and parties seek out for support, but that is not a party itself.

The word Rubin and Dagher are too kind to use is "party organ." And, if like MoveOn, the candidate that 'wins' the endoresement (in the rigged process) is the one that does the biggest insult. That's an interesting take on Rubin and Dahger's part but it's not reflected by wisdom in the State Dept. The consensus seems to be that no one knows. There's a strand that believes al-Sadr's influencing the elections under the radar, there's a strand that believes he's in Iran and not intending to come back (at least any time soon), and there's a strand that sees him in a state of flux where ever he is. Rubin and Dagher may be correct but why they make the conclusion that they do isn't clear in the article. I'm not really seeing -- maybe I'm missing it -- an acknowledgement by the reporters that al-Sadr is the movement. That is even more so post his speaking out against al-Maliki's slaughter on Basra in March. The refusal of the US to curb the puppet allowed the then-fading al-Sadr to increase his political power.

And for those who would prefer audio, click here and scroll down the left side of the page for Alissa J. Rubin offering analysis of the players.

And the following community sites have updated since yesterday:

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